Project Homura
by tambuli
Summary: The dogs of Hades: Cerberus. Luz Shepard and her ground team raid the main Cerberus facility on Nepheron, intent on ensuring they don't experiment on innocent people again. There they find the subject of Project Homura: a confused college student who says...she's from the 21st century?
1. Chapter 1

**_WARNING, WARNING. UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL HAVE BREACHED THE FACILITY._**

Anna snaps awake, heart pounding as the alarm blares. Reflexively, she tries to get up, but her hands are bound, her torso strapped down, and her feet cuffed.

She casts wild eyes around the area. The lab, she was still in the lab. She jerks at the bindings, but they haven't gotten any looser since she fell asleep in the restraints. She clenches her fists, hoping against hope that the movie trick would work and the restraints would snap off, but of course they don't. Just like the last ten times she tried that tactic.

 ** _THIS IS A CODE RED. REPEAT, THIS IS CODE RED._**

"—get the shuttles ready for launch! I'll secure Project Homura!"

The door slams open, and the Caucasian scientist—she assumes he's a scientist, he's always wearing a lab coat—who was always poking and prodding at her bursts in.

"Can't bring her to the shuttle in a bed, no," he mutters frantically, "have to bring her on foot—"

"What's going on? What's happening?" Anna asks.

He ignores her, and unshackles her feet from the railing. Anna kicks out at him, but he pulls a gun on her.

"Don't make this difficult for me, Project Homura," he warns her. "I will shoot you if you don't cooperate."

"You'd never," Anna dares to say. "Kill Project Homura? _You'd never._ "

She's gambling, going off of half-remembered conversations while her consciousness was still swimming in sedatives. _What are you doing here? **Getting more samples from Project Homura. Still can't isolate what made the experiment work.** Let me just dose her again, she's coming awake—_

Fear flits across the man's face, but he schools it. "We can heal a shattered kneecap or two, no problem," he says. "Now are you going to behave or not?"

"Or not," Anna spits, and tries to kick out again.

"What's taking you so long?" someone yells from outside the door.

"Project Homura is being uncooperative!" he yells back.

"Project Homura is strapped to a fucking table!"

The scientist snarls, and, keeping his gun trained on Anna, starts to unshackle her left wrist. As soon as it's free, she backhands the man's face, but it's effortlessly blocked.

"Come in and help me!" the scientist yells.

The other man appears at the doorway. "Can't you handle her yourself?"

"Apparently not," Anna snarks.

The other man approaches and pins her hands as the first scientist produces handcuffs. Anna flails, tries to kick the second man, but the man's superior weight keeps her immobile.

"Fucking _stay still_ ," he hisses.

"Not on your goddamn life," Anna says.

The cuffs click into place, and the second man lets up. There's only the band around her torso now.

"Keep your gun on her kneecap," the second man says to the first. "Shatter it if she so much as fucking twitches."

The steel of the gun is cool against her bare knee. Anna stays completely still, mind racing.

This is the closest she's ever come to being completely unbound since she woke up in a lab, surrounded by people in lab coats. This is also possibly the closest she'll ever come to escape, what with the alarm blaring and two scientists panicking over getting her out but also keeping her intact.

 _Think, Anna, think._

Someone'd broken into the facility. She didn't know who that was, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right? All the scientists who'd come to draw her blood, cut her tissue, ask her questions etc had spoken American English, and all of them looked non-Asian. So it was probably American SWAT or something.

So she, what, got free and ran towards the people in SWAT uniforms? But how could she get away from Asshole One and Asshole Two?

The band around her torso withdraws.

"Get up," Asshole One orders.

Slowly, she does, the gun trained on her the whole time. Asshole Two clamps on her arm, preventing any sort of escape.

 _God, please let this work,_ Anna pleads.

She wobbles to her feet and attempts a couple of steps. Asshole Two moves with her, hand tight around her bicep.

She drops.

The sudden shift of gravity causes Asshole Two to let go of her. Asshole One yells, and fires—but Anna is already rolling out of the way, scrambling to her feet, and hurtling toward the door.

 _God, God please!_

"Stop her!" Asshole One yells. Bullets whizz past Anna, _God thank you for making him such a terrible shot_ , she thinks hysterically, and runs faster.

She's in a dark corridor, lit only by emergency lights, _God please don't let me stumble—_ she veers right on instinct—she can hear Asshole One and Asshole Two yelling, "Which direction did she go? Which?" "Fucking split up then! And don't fucking kill her!"

"I'm not trying to kill her!"

"That would've been a headshot!"

There! An elevator! She puts on a burst of speed and hits the button with her nose. Behind her, the sound of footsteps grows louder.

The elevator doors slide open and Anna scans the buttons frantically. Ground floor might have an exit, but could also be crawling with scientists. She'd have to risk it. She pushes the ground floor button with her nose, then the close door button.

 _God, God please!_

Asshole One rounds the corner, and hollers when he sees her in the elevator, "Stop! Stop right there!" and fires.

Pain blooms in her shoulder. "Fuck!"

The elevator doors slide closed.

She slides to the floor, panting hard. She can't even reach the wound to put pressure on it—that's what you do, right? All the movies say put pressure on the wound—because her fucking hands are fucking cuffed. God. Okay.

 _Lola, getting shot is not fun,_ she thinks hysterically.

The elevator says only a few more floors until the ground floor. She'll run out there and—do something, scream for help? Surely there would be people in the SWAT team who didn't go inside the building? They'd have sent in a strike force or something, and backup would wait outside, right? _Why the fuck didn't I watch more war movies, Blue is the Warmest Color is not gonna fucking help me right now—_

The elevator doors slide open, two floors before it's supposed to.

Anna stares down the barrels of three guns.

"Okay," a person in pink and white armor says. "This is definitely not a Cerberus scientist."

"Are you SWAT?" Anna asks. She scans them, but sees no SWAT vests. She can't see their faces, either—they're all helmeted.

"Pardon?" the person—a woman—in the middle asks, lowering her gun. The other two do the same.

"SWAT," Anna repeats. "The people raiding this place?"

"We're raiding it, but we're not SWAT," the pink-and-white armor woman says.

"She's bleeding!" the person to the left says. A guy in a catsuit? He rushes to her and notices her hands are cuffed. "Someone hand me the omnigel!"

"Omnigel?"

He doesn't answer her, just slaps some weird goo on her cuffs then twists. The cuffs come undone, and with her hands falling to her sides, her shoulder protests in pain.

"Oh, fuck, ouch!"

"Get her to safety, Kaidan," the woman in the middle says. "Ashley and I will take care of the rest of the facility."

The catsuit guy nods. He turns to her.

"Hey. Can you walk?"

Anna struggles to her feet. "Yeah, I think so."

"You better carry her, K," the pink-and-white armor woman says. "Take her to the Mako, we'll catch up."

"Roger that." The catsuit guy, Kaidan, K, looks at her. "But first, I gotta fix that shoulder."

"Thanks," Anna says faintly. "Getting shot…not fun."

The pink-and-white armor woman snorts a laugh.

Catsuit guy Kaidan peers at her shoulder. "I'm gonna peel away the cloth, okay? And put some medigel on the wound."

Medigel, what the fuck is medigel? Some sort of American SWAT specialty, probably, she'd know if she watched any of Lolo's action movies. She nods anyway, and Kaidan pulls away the bloodstained hospital gown. She hisses.

"Bullet's not embedded, must've just grazed you," Kaidan says. He pulls out a canister and puts some gel over the wound. The pain ebbs, the gel numbing the area. Anna manages a smile up at the guy. "Thanks, Kaidan," she says.

"No problem," he says. "Hey, what's your name?"

"Anna," she says.

"I'm gonna carry you to the Mako, okay Anna? You don't look to be in any shape to walk, and we need to be fast."

Anna nods. She can't really argue with that logic. He pulls her up in a fireman's carry, and he speedwalks to—wherever it is they're going.

Anna closes her eyes. Kaidan. Pink and white armor woman. The middle woman. All of them had spoken in accented English, which meant she was probably in a foreign country. God, okay. How was she gonna get home?

"Kaidan?"

"Yes?"

"Where are we?"

"Nepheron," he says. "In the Columbia System."

"Um, where's that?"

"Voyager Cluster."

"I mean like, is it in the USA, or Europe, or something…?"

"Oh, are you from Earth?" Kaidan says. "I'm from Earth too. Vancouver, Canada. Right now we're in—"

"What do you mean, from Earth _too_?" Anna interrupts. "Where else would you _come from_?"

Kaidan laughs.

"Well, strictly speaking that's true, all humans come from Earth. Where do you come from, Anna?"

"Quezon City," Anna says.

"And that is…?"

"In the Philippines. Kaidan, _where are we_?"

"I told you," Kaidan says. "We're on the planet Nepheron, in the Columbia System, Voyager Cluster. We're not on Earth anymore."

* * *

"How's she doing, doc?" is the next thing Anna hears.

She's in bed again, but this time there's no alarm blaring and—she wiggles her ankles—she's not bound either. She's warm, too, a comforter pulled up to her shoulders, and she doesn't feel groggy, not like when she would wake up after the scientists would sedate her.

The alarms blaring. Asshole One and Two. Kaidan, pink and white armor woman, the other woman. It all swims back into her consciousness—she's out, she's escaped, she's with the not-SWAT team.

"Physically, she's perfectly fine except for that gunshot wound," a clipped British voice answers. "Cerberus took care of her, it seems. But she has a lot of needle marks, and some scars that indicate scalpel use. Cerberus was taking blood and tissue from her."

"What did they want from her?" another voice intrudes. Pink and white armor woman.

"The commander would know," Kaidan's voice says. Anna tries to open her eyes, and to her surprise succeeds.

She's in a small clinic-like environment, kind of like the university infirmary. A row of white beds lines the opposite end of the room. She casts her eyes about, and sees catsuit guy, pink and white armor woman, and a gray-haired woman holding a—glowing orange pad-thing.

"Where—where am I?" Anna rasps.

The catsuit guy smiles. "Hey. You're on the SSV Normandy, in the medbay."

Catsuit guy is Kaidan. She scrutinizes his face, now that it isn't covered by the helmet. Perfect hair, perfect eyebrows, probably in his thirties. She attempts a smile.

The gray-haired woman steps forward.

"Hello," she says. "I'm Dr. Karin Chakwas, the doctor of the SSV Normandy. How are you feeling?"

Anna mentally inventories herself. Nothing hurts, but the spot where she was shot is more numb than the rest of her body. She says as much, and Dr. Chakwas nods. "That will be the medigel. Anything else?"

"I'd appreciate a glass of water," she says.

Dr. Chakwas nods. "Let me just get some ice chips for you." She does so, and spoons some into Anna's mouth. Then she raises her glowing orange pad-thing.

"What is your name?" Dr. Chakwas asks.

"Anna Salvador," she says.

"How old are you?"

"I'm twenty. November 18, 1998," she adds.

Dead silence.

"Pardon?" Dr. Chakwas says. " _Nineteen ninety-eight?_ "

"Um, yes," Anna says. "Oh my god, hindi na ba—I mean, is it not 2018 anymore? Or 2019? How long did the scientists have me?"

The three exchange looks.

"Around two hundred years?" pink and white armor woman says.

"I'm _sorry_?"

"Ashley!" Dr. Chakwas chides. "Don't upset my patient! Go get the commander, she'll want to hear about this."

"I'm just _saying_ ," pink and white armor woman—Ashley—says, then leaves.

"I don't understand," Anna says. "Is this like in the movies, when you like, wake up from a coma and it's like five years after you first went under? Is that what the scientists did to me?"

"What did the scientists do to you, Anna?" Kaidan asks. "How long did they have you?"

"I don't know," Anna says. "I just—I just remember it was my twentieth birthday, and my grandparents and I went out for dinner and then—I think we left the restaurant—"

And then nothing. And then blackness. And then the next time she woke up, she was strapped to that bed.

She tells them as much, and watches Dr. Chakwas frown. "So they abducted you?"

"I guess? But why would they want me? I'm just a college student, my grandparents aren't like, super rich…And they didn't say anything about ransoming me, either. It was just…a lot of blood drawing, a lot of experiments."

"Experiments?"

Anna raises her arm—oh, the simple joy of being able to raise her arm!—and indicates the needle marks. "They drew a lot of blood," she says. "Um. They called me Project Homura. They took some of my, well, fat, too." She laughs a little. "There was a lot of that for them to take."

"Project Homura," Kaidan murmurs.

"They took a lot of samples," Anna repeats. "The guy who was with me most often, he would talk to himself, and say stuff like 'Can't figure out why the experiment isn't working, we had one success and then nothing,' stuff like that. And then he'd take more samples."

There was silence for a bit, then Dr. Chakwas visibly steels herself. "Very well, Anna Salvador, twenty years old. Can you tell me about how Cerberus treated you? Did they feed you, or were all your nutrients given to you through an IV line?"

Dr. Chakwas asks more questions like that, and Anna does her best to answer from what she can remember. She never had food, she was just fed through an IV. Yes, she was bound all the time, but sometimes a nurse—or what seemed like a nurse—would come in to help her do bed mobility exercises.

"She never told me her name or anything," Anna recalls. "But she was…nice. The only one who smiled at me in that damn place."

She's in the middle of answering how she took baths—sponge baths with the same nurse—when the med bay door hisses open.

"Commander!" Kaidan snaps to attention, and salutes the woman coming in.

It's the middle woman from earlier, without the helmet. Anna's eyes track to her face.

" _Maria?_ " she blurts out.

"Who on earth is Maria?" the woman asks.

Anna scans her face again. No, it's not Maria, but she looks so much like her—friend?—it's uncanny. The same wide forehead, the same stark cheekbones, the curly dark hair wrestled into a bun. But, yes, she was wrong, this is not Maria—this woman is probably thirty-ish, and furthermore Maria has probably never dressed in combat armor. Not like this woman.

"I'm Commander Luz Shepard," the woman introduces herself, and sticks a hand out to shake. Anna grips it and shakes it firmly.

"Anna Salvador," she says.

"I understand you rescued yourself from Cerberus forces, Miss Salvador," Commander Shepard says.

"Is that what they were? Cerberus? Like the three-headed dog?" Anna asks.

"From Greek mythology, yes," Dr. Chakwas says.

"Who were they?" Anna asks. "What did they want from me?"

"Cerberus is a terrorist group, Miss Salvador," Commander Shepard says. "They were conducting experiments on various life-forms. You were in one of their bases, on the planet Nepheron." Her mouth quirks.

"The _planet_ Nepheron?" Anna repeats. "Like…outer space? Like, the solar system?"

"We're not in the Sol system, Anna," Kaidan says patiently. "We're in the Columbia system."

"See, I don't know where that is," Anna informs him. "But like…aren't other systems _light years_ away from the solar system? How did Cerberus get there? Are they like, NASA-funded? US government-funded?"

"Where are you _from_ , Miss Salvador?" Commander Shepard asks.

"Quezon City, Philippines," Anna says. " _Earth._ We're not on Earth anymore?"

"No, we are not," Commander Shepard confirms.

There's a sinking feeling in Anna's gut. Her earlier words replay in her mind: _Is this like in the movies, when you like, wake up from a coma and it's like five years after you first went under? Is that what the scientists did to me?..._

 _…"Around two hundred years?" pink and white armor woman says…_

"This isn't 2018," she says miserably. "Is it."

"No, it's not," Commander Shepard says gently.

"What year is it?"

"2183."

* * *

 _ **Author's note:**_

Hey. Yeah, I'm starting _another_ fanfic because Mass Effect has been eating my brain for weeks. This is a not-really-a-typical-self-insert because Anna doesn't know she's in Mass Effect, which should be interesting because she has no foreknowledge. One of my inspirations for this is I_Mushi's _Home With the Fairies_ , which is **the** best Lord of the Rings modern-girl-falls-into-Middle-Earth fic ever. Ever. If I write something half as good for Mass Effect I would be content.

Glossary:

Lola - grandmother

Lolo - grandfather

hindi na ba - is it not


	2. Chapter 2

2183.

Time travel.

Anna lies awake in bed, long after Dr. Chakwas has dimmed the lights and left the med bay. _This isn't Kansas anymore_ , she snarks to herself, but. It's not funny when it's her.

When it's real.

She looks around her. It's a regular-looking infirmary. Smells right, too. Antiseptic. Obsessively clean things. If she closes her eyes she could pretend she was in the university infirmary—

Except she wasn't. Was she. Because she's in fucking _space_ and a hundred sixty-five years away from what she knows.

 _Lolo, Lola… **Maria.**_

She closes her eyes, sees her grandparents' faces as she last saw them, wrinkled with age and laugh-lines. Lola with her perfect lipstick and eyeliner and fluffy white hair. Lolo with the brown skin and calluses. _What did they think when I disappeared? What happened to them?_

 _Maria. Maria._

 _I don't want to think about this. Fuck it. I'm in a spaceship. I'm going exploring._

She swings her legs over the bed railing. The floor is cold, but she sees a couple of pairs of hospital slippers by the door. After a moment of thought, she brings the thick comforter with her, draping it around her shoulders like a cape.

She puzzles over the door for a while, because it doesn't have a knob, before realizing it has a pad at the side. She doesn't know what to do with that either, but she presses on it and the door hisses open.

The future is _weird_.

Just as she's about to step out, another door hisses open and someone exclaims in surprise.

She whirls.

Standing on the opposite side of the med bay is an _alien_!

"Oh my god!" Anna shrieks, and scrambles away from the alien as fast as she can. She hits one of the beds with her hip. "Fuck! Oh my god, oh my god—"

The alien looks passingly like a human, but is terrifyingly _in_ human also: instead of skin, it has scales, and instead of regular human skin color, it's vibrantly blue. Its head is deformed, also: earless, with what looked like short tentacles growing out the back. It towers over Anna, hands outstretched and mouth open, issuing high whistle notes and some clicks.

 _Oh my god, it's an alien life form that possessed one of the humans here and will proceed to slaughter the entire ship!_ Anna panics.

The alien continues to whistle, trilling at Anna.

She begins edging away, not making any sudden movements. The alien trills again. In the notes Anna detects a sort of soothing tone, the kind of sound you would use to calm down a terrified animal.

 _It would be more soothing if the pitch wasn't so high it hurts my ears!_ Anna thinks hysterically.

When it doesn't approach her or do anything like lunge at her and bite her neck or something, Anna slowly relaxes. Seeing her shoulders drop, the alien emits some more whistle notes, but lower this time, and yes, that definitely sounds soothing now. Like a wordless, high-pitched song.

"Uh, hello," Anna tries.

The alien sings back at her in what sounds like greeting.

"I guess…you're not going to kill me?"

The alien shakes its head violently. The next notes it sings don't sound anything like _no no no,_ but Anna figures that's pretty much what it means.

"Um. Okay." Anna suddenly becomes very aware of her situation: dressed in a hospital gown and slippers, wrapped in a comforter, talking with a _blue alien._ Well, sort of talking. "You're…not human."

The alien shakes its head.

She scans the alien up and down. It's really tall, at least compared to five foot Anna—wait, probably not _it_ , now that they've established the alien is intelligent and not murderous. The alien looks like a female human, except for the blueness and the tentacle-head and the way its, _their?_ language doesn't sound anything like she's ever heard.

 _Alien, Anna,_ she reminds herself. _What makes you think their language would be familiar?_

"You can understand me?"

The alien nods, and indicates their…neck, she supposes, a neck which is all ridged and scaled.

"Yeah, see, I don't know what that means," she informs the alien. "You can understand me, but I can't understand you. Sorry."

The alien furrows its—brows? They have markings above their eyes that look like eyebrows, but the markings don't have actual hair. Then the pitch of the alien's song changes, into something lower, with individual syllables pronounced very slowly.

Anna shakes her head. "Nope. Still don't get it."

The alien droops, then lights up again. Slowly they pronounce, "Lee-ya-rah," while indicating themself.

"Lee-ya-rah," Anna imitates as closely as she can. The alien nods, and purple lips spread into a smile. "Leeyarah," they repeat.

"Leeyarah."

"Liara."

"Liara."

The alien nods enthusiastically. "Liara," they say again, pointing at oneself. Then they point to her.

"Anna," Anna says, guessing the alien is asking her name. She points to the alien, "Liara." Then to herself, "Anna."

"Anna," the alien repeats. "Anna." Then they point to their self again: "Asari."

"Asari?" Anna parrots.

They point to Anna, and say carefully, "Hyoo-man." Then to their self: "Asari."

Anna gets it. She points to herself: "Human." Then to the alien: "Asari."

The alien nods again, even more enthusiastically.

"Anna. Human."

"Liara. Asari."

They stare at each other for a moment, then Anna says, "Pleased to meet you, Liara," and sticks her hand out. Liara looks at it for a moment, puzzled, then understanding visibly dawns on them and they shake hands.

"I guess asari don't shake hands?" Anna says. Liara says again, "Human," and Anna nods. "Guess it's a human thing. How do asari greet each other?"

Liara looks uncomfortable, and shakes their head.

"Cool, cool, okay, if you don't want to tell me that's fine," Anna says. _What does one even **say** to an alien? _"I was just about to go explore the rest of the ship. Do you want to come with?"

Liara gestures to their stomach, then mimes eating.

"You were going to get food? Cool, okay."

The two of them pad out into what looks like a deserted mess hall— _at least they have tables and chairs in the future,_ Anna snarks to herself. Everything is done up in sleek blacks and silvers, lit in blue. It looks appropriately space-like.

It kind of reminds her of that one visual novel, _This, My Soul._ Yeah, the SSV Normandy looked just like the ship in that game.

Liara heads to a kitchen-like area just off the mess hall, and Anna is kind of surprised to realize she can recognize almost everything there. There's a counter, an electric stove, some cabinets where she supposes all the pots and pans are…it doesn't look much different from a regular, "modern" kitchen, honestly.

 _Some things don't change, I guess._

There's also a huge refrigerator. She touches it, but doesn't open it—she probably isn't supposed to be messing around with stuff in the freaking _spaceship._

Liara opens a cupboard and pulls out a couple of bars of…something. Anna can't read the label on front, but they look like protein bars to her.

Liara offers her one, but Anna asks, "Can humans eat what you eat?"

More song-like speech. Anna stares blankly at Liara.

"Um, if we're not sure if I can eat that, I'd rather not," she demurs.

Distressed high-pitched noises.

"No, no, it's fine, I don't mind," Anna attempts to soothe the asari. This whole one-way understanding thing is difficult. "Liara, how come you can understand me but I can't understand you?"

Liara indicates their ridged neck again.

"I have no idea what that means," Anna says.

"It means she has a sub-dermal translator implant," Commander Shepard says from behind them.

Liara jerks, dropping the protein bar and exclaiming something in their native language. Commander Shepard laughs.

"Liara, Liara, relax," she says. "Sorry I startled you."

 _Incredibly_ high-pitched whistle notes. Anna cringes at the assault on her eardrums.

Commander Shepard leans against the kitchen counter, amused dark eyes surveying the two of them. Liara picks up the protein bar, their face flushed entirely purple.

"You're out of bed pretty late, Miss Salvador," Commander Shepard comments, turning to Anna. She taps at her wrist, and a glowing orange hand blooms around her arm. "It's 14:32 Earth time."

Anna does a quick bit of mental math. 2:32 AM.

"Couldn't sleep," she offers. "The whole…situation. You know."

Commander Shepard nods. "This must be very strange for you," God, understatement of the—she's not even in the _same century!_ "Is there anything I can do to help, Miss Salvador?"

"You sound like my professors," Anna says. "Call me Anna, please."

"Anna," Commander Shepard says. "Call me Shepard. Is there anything I can help you with? Any questions you have?"

"Well," Anna begins, "what did you mean by sub-dermal translator implant?"

Liara says something to Shepard, and Shepard nods. "You don't have a translator, Anna, so you're hearing Liara speak in Thessian." Liara says something else. "She says she tried Galactic with you, but you didn't understand that either."

"I speak two languages, but both of them are human," Anna says. "Liara does know a couple words of English, though. Well. She knows the word _human_ , at least."

"Tell you what," Shepard says. "I'll make some hot chocolate and play translator, as well as give you Galactic Events 101, to get you up to speed."

"Thank you," Anna says gratefully. She sinks into the chair, drapes the comforter more comfortably around her, and waits.

As Shepard bustles around making three cups of hot chocolate, she begins explaining.

Apparently, there are twelve intelligent, spacefaring species ("So far," Commander Shepard cautions her, "there could be more,") in the Milky Way galaxy, namely the asari, turians, salarians, humans, hanar, drell, volus, elcor, krogan, quarians, batarians, and vorcha. "Well, the vorcha is debatable."

Liara says something indignantly, and Shepard laughs. "Okay, fair." At Anna's questioning look, Shepard says, "Liara just told me that that was mean to the vorcha—vorcha are a short-lived species who didn't really develop their own space travel, but rather stowed away on ships—but anyway, what Liara was telling me was: vorcha are an intelligent species, they're just…"

Liara says something again, and Shepard finishes, "Violent."

Anna is deeply confused, but motions for Shepard to continue.

"And since there are a lot of species, there are a lot of languages," Shepard says. "So there developed a galaxy-wide technology for people to communicate. It's a translator, injected right under your skin so you can understand everyone else."

Liara indicates their neck again. "That's where Liara's sub-dermal implant is. Mine's behind my ear."

"I was wondering what the galactic lingua franca was," Anna mused.

"It's creatively called Galactic," Shepard tells her.

These twelve races are all governed by a galaxy-wide Council, which makes its capital in the space station, the Citadel.

"So there are twelve races on the Council?" Anna asks.

"No, there are just three."

"But—there are twelve races?"

"The asari, salarians, and turians are the top dogs of the galaxy," Shepard tells her. "They're the ones who get to decide the laws for everyone else. The rest of us just have ambassadorships, embassies—some don't even have that much. The krogan, the quarians, don't have embassies. Humans do."

"But how is that fair? Everyone should have a voice in legislature! I mean, do these…asari salarians turians even understand the unique needs of the races of the galaxy?

"I mean, not even that! We have an ambassador, right? How can they speak for all seven billion—wait, is it seven billion—"

"Thirteen billion humans."

"—thirteen billion humans in the universe? There are _so many_ of us, how can they even—"

Liara breaks in, saying something in staccato whistles. It goes on for a while, Shepard's face changing expressions from understanding to blank-faced to resigned.

"The common view," Shepard begins, "is that races must _earn_ their right to sit on the Council. What Liara was saying was that the asari discovered the Citadel first, and are technically the oldest, most advanced race, so…"

Shepard shrugs.

"According to Liara, humans are seen as the bullies of the galaxy, Anna," Shepard tells her. "It's only been about thirty years since the First Contact War—" ("There was a _war_?" "Yes.") "–and yet humanity wants a seat on the Council, wants a say in governance. The other races I mentioned, like the volus, the hanar, the elcor? They've been around for centuries and yet they're not on the Council."

Anna subsides, not really knowing what to say. She just today discovered there were races other than her own that were sapient—she'd have to take some time to absorb that, before she went meddling into politics.

 _There is a galaxy full of things you don't understand, Anna,_ she tells herself. _Learn first before you say things!_

 _(I don't want to learn, I want to go **home** , I have a paper to write!)_

Silence for a moment, as Shepard gets up to serve them all hot chocolate. After a while sipping chocolate, it's the commander who breaks the silence again.

"I didn't realize you were so politically-minded, Anna," she says.

Anna laughs. "I'm a journalism major. Was. God, I don't know. It was basically my job to keep up with stuff…I'm _one sixty-five years behind on the news, oh my god_."

 _At least you don't have to pass that article,_ she thinks dryly.

 _Oh my god I'm one sixty five years away from everything I know and everyone I love is dead,_ she thinks hysterically.

Pushing the thought away like a repression champion, she manages a smile at Commander Shepard. "Is our ambassador any good?"

Commander Shepard's wrinkled nose tells her the answer.

Anna sighs. "No matter when, politicians are trash."

More silence, then Anna asks the question that's been burning at her—well, no. Not _the_ question, but one of the questions she'd wanted to ask. (The rest she pushes away: _not now, Anna, not now._ ) "Is my country okay?"

"Okay how?"

"Like…did we get absorbed by China?"

"The Philippines?" Shepard says. "No. We're still sovereign."

"We…?"

"Oh. My grandfather was Filipino," she says.

"Oh, really?" Well, Shepard does look Southeast Asian, even though she's also quite tall; not as tall as Liara, but pretty damn tall. "That's…cool," Anna says lamely. "Do you speak any Filipino at all?"

"No, not really. And I've never been there. My mothers were Alliance military, so I grew up in space."

 _Mothers._ Anna thrills at the casual mention of same-sex marriages. She ventures again, "And same-sex marriage is okay in the future?"

"Yes. Honestly, the big issue now, at least for humanity, is different-species relationships," Commander Shepard says. "Some human nations and religions don't recognize different-species relationships."

Out of the corner of her eye, Anna sees Liara flush deep purple again.

"What about you, Liara?" Anna asks. "What's your stance on interspecies romance?"

Liara glances at Shepard, and their blush grows even purpler. Then she says something. Shepard laughs.

"Do you really want to get into asari reproduction?" she asks Anna. "Actually, I just learned about asari reproduction a few days ago—Liara enlightened me."

" _Enlightened—_ "

Incredibly distressed high-pitched noises from Liara.

"No, no, not like _that_ ," Shepard dismisses, laughing easily. "I'll give you a datapad or something about it, but in essence: asari are generally very okay with interspecies romance. Actually, I don't know about other races who expressly forbid it, but then again I don't really know a lot about other races. All I know is that there are some humans who don't recognize it."

"Oh. I guess no matter when, people always find something to criticize and forbid," Anna says.

"Amen," another voice sounds.

The three of them turn. It's pink and white armor woman—Ashley, if she remembers correctly.

"I wouldn't have thought you'd defend different-species relationships, Ashley," Shepard says jokingly. "Planning to kiss a turian anytime soon?"

" _Ma'am._ "

"I'm just saying, Ash."

Ashley turns to Anna. "Hey, I didn't get to introduce myself earlier. Ashley Williams."

"Anna Salvador," Anna says.

Ashley nods to Liara coolly. "Doctor T'Soni."

"Liara's a doctor?" Anna asks. "Medical? Or…?"

"She studies the Protheans," Shepard says. Anna opens her mouth to ask what Protheans are, but before she can say anything a clipped British voice calls out, "And _what_ are you doing out of bed, Miss Salvador?"

"Doc Chakwas," Shepard says, nodding to the gray-haired doctor, whose arms are crossed. "Care to join us? Just catching Anna up on, oh, two hundred years of galactic history."

Liara makes a questioning sound.

"Oh, right, we didn't tell you," Shepard realizes. She looks at Anna, eyebrows raised. "Can we…?"

Anna shrugs expressively.

"Galactic history will have to wait until the morning cycle," Dr. Chakwas says sternly. "To bed, Miss Salvador. I won't have you aggravating that injury, and besides we don't know the side effects of your…situation."

"Sorry, doctor. I'll be right there. Bye, guys," Anna says, feeling very much like a child told to come home by her mother.

"Good night, Anna," Shepard and Ashley say. Liara says something that Anna assumes is also a good night.

Then she is chivvied back to the med bay, her shoulder wound rechecked, then told very sternly to go to sleep.

So she does. Her dreams are filled with star-speckled white laboratories and blue aliens in labcoats.


End file.
